I thought that was Russel T Davies who wrote the school episode? It was before Moffat took over from him. But I agree about the spiral thing, at the beginning I loved Moffat, but now, not so much. I don't think this, or the last series were as good as the first one with Matt Smith. Also I'm tired of seeing the Angels every year, they were far better in Blink.

Stephen Moffat has spent the past season and a half destroying his reputation as a great writer. Every episode has been increasingly fractured and poorly constructed, the plot holes have been getting bigger and bigger, and every episode has been getting sillier and sillier. Any hint of drama or suspense comes from overusing the term "fixed point", or by having Smith be really really angsty. Oh, the Doctor is also getting really incompetent.

I dunno man. If i was really nit-picky i'd definitely start agreeing with you. But to be honest, I'm just happy we're getting doctor who as it is, and that it's still going. I can't tell you how jaded I've been when it comes to my favourite sci-fi shows that keep getting cancelled or just ending abruptly.

Yes, we could argue that it's not as fantastic as some other stuff, but that like comparing David Tennant to any upcoming Doctor. People have rose-coloured glasses of the past, and things will never be as good as how they remembered it.

Okay, starting from the most recent and working my way back. Spoilers below, obviously.

S07E05: The Angels Take Manhattan

The detective novel idea could have been really cool, but just ended up wasting the first 5-10 minutes of the episode with a gimmicky plot device.

The episode practically starts with a shot of Rory's grave, which kinda kills the suspense of the ending.

The ending. All of it. Rory gets sent back by the angel, and Amy decides to follow him back. The Doctor can't go get them because you can't land the Tardis in Manhattan in 1938. So what? So fucking what? Head back in 1939, or meet up anywhere else. They could just meet up in Long Island or Queens or Brooklyn or Jersey. Rory can wait 1000 years for Amy, but they can't wait a year or take the goddamn train out of New York? We already know that the Tardis can go to NYC during other parts of the 30's.

The Statue of Liberty. A giant hollow statue with a completely documented history is actually an angel. It's orders of magnitude larger than any of the others, but plays no important role, and is never explained. To cap it all off, The Statue of Fucking Liberty somehow manages to get off of Liberty Island and walk through downtown Manhattan without a single person looking at it? Then, after they make a paradox, all the Angels zap out of existence, right? So, the Statue of Liberty either stops existing, or just turns into a giant scary-ass statue sitting in the middle of the city? Right. Sure.

S07E04: The Power of Three

Actually a fairly solid episode.

The antagonist is unveiled in the last 5 minutes of the episode, Scooby-Doo style. It turns out that they're a Gallifreyan legend that nobody ever really believed in. (Sound rehashed, at all?). Their motivation is "we want to exterminate the humans."

S07E03: A Town Called Mercy

The Doctor becomes increasingly incompetent, requiring Amy to think for him. People are having an intelligent discussion about morals and he just jumps straight to execution?

The Doctor's stance on guns is pretty. fucking. established. All that goes to shit though. When the Doctor pulls out a gun, it's a serious big deal. So, why does he break his unbreakable rule? Because of a morally questionable scientist. Not the man who just killed his daughter and the only other timelord alive, not the emperor of the Daleks, not the timelords returning to start the time war up again. Just some fucking guy, who arguably doesn't even deserve it.

The Gunslinger is a mysterious cyborg soldier with a cannon-arm, and the ability to teleport. You can get away from him though, by running. He can't just teleport and shoot them? Really?

S07E02: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

The entire episode was built on special effects, rather than a plot.

The robots with funny voices were a scary step away from this and towards this. Stephen Moffat shouldn't be taking hints from George Lucas or Michael Bay.

S07E01: Asylum of the Daleks

I enoyed this episode, except the Doctor just left the thousands of Daleks behind. He didn't thwart them or prevent them from doing anything nefarious. Just deleted himself from their memory banks and left. Pretty solid though, otherwise.

I agree, man. It's as if he started writing as a fan boy, with stories that would appear in the fan newsgroups based around simple premises rather than good stories. (Spoilers: What if the doctor was a gun slinging cowboy? What if Amy and Rory had a fight that the doctor solved? What if Daleks where cool and could change into kinda people, etc...)

Every good idea is rehashed into death by doing "cool" things with no plot..

Well, I think the "I AM A HUMAN DALEK thing was Russel T Davies, but I'm with you on every other point there. The only thing that's stayed continuously high quality has been the Doctor/River storyline and dynamic.